For the second time this year, Rachel Maddow pulled off a weekly ratings win against Fox News in the critical 25-54 demographic that advertisers prefer.
MSNBC has been enjoying a bit of boost with daily breaking coverage of Chris Christie’s BridgeGate scandal. And thanks to Christie’s determination to impede the investigation the story just keeps getting prolonged which, of course, provides more opportunities for MSNBC to rake in the ratings.
Rachel Maddow is one of the prime beneficiaries of this situation. She was the first cable newsie to report on Christie’s bullying tactics and she has consistently broken new developments. As result she is seeing her ratings spike significantly.
Making this even more significant is the fact that Maddow is beating Megyn Kelly, who was promoted to her prime time slot specifically to try to capture more of the younger audience that Maddow is drawing. For her to have another weekly win so soon may be a warning flag that Kelly isn’t appealing to the audience that Fox intended. In fact, Kelly may just be exacerbating Fox’s older skewing, predominantly male audience who tune in for the titillation that Fox deliberately exploits.
In addition to Maddow’s numbers, Chris Matthews has also been bumped up. He beat his Fox competition, Greta Van Susteren, for the week as well. It is clear that having substantive reporting that viewers find valuable is the most effective way of building an audience. And MSNBC should strive to more of that. Or they could try the Fox model of just making shit up that feeds the prejudices of low-information viewers. That seems to work too.
Yawn. Out of 20 weeks of ratings since Megyn Kelly got her primetime slot, she has kicked butt 90% of the time. Trying to make it sound as if MSNBC is on a ratings tear is absurd.
“Substantive reporting”? Chris Matthews? He is the one who is making excrement up. Matthews is back to insisting that Susan Rice (snort, giggle) told the truth when she said that Benghazi-gate happened because of that stupid video. Matthews’ show is a train wreck.
Snort and giggle is what you hear on Fox News.
*SARCASM ALERT*
Gee, that had a lot of substance.
*END OF SARCASM ALERT*
Yeah, cause T & A really sells on Faux “news.” That’s all they’ve got to offer. They actually have permission from the Supreme Court to NOT tell the truth while they pass it off as “news.” People don’t tune into Fox for “news” …. they tune in for their daily snort of hate media. Someone who tells them it’s okay to hate and go around shooting people “just because.”
so true // we should all be rich these people love this 100% BS
“…hate media…”
Martin Bashir, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, Keith “Go f### your mother” Olbermann – the list of past and present hate-spewers on MSNBC is enless.
Anyone who even uses the term “Faux News” is already pigeon holed. Honestly, they ALL suck. They play to their demographics to get ratings. They hardly ever report real news. I wish people would wake up and leave their dogmatic party views in the trash where they belong. All that matters is liberty and freedom. To not have our rights trampled on by individuals, companies and government. Stick to what really matters. Not what the talking heads say.
Fox gets about 1 to almost 2% of the population on its best days… Where are the rest of the population? Some big city cable companies have hundreds of channels. Even out in the sticks where live we have about 300. But the average is about 150.
That means of the now 150 or so cable channels now, a very few mush
heads choose fox propaganda machine to get lies ( they went to court to
tell .. the technically cannot call themselves news any more so they
fake separate functions ) misinformation, dis-information, carped
statements, edited videos, and Some people say” at 0900 becomes news at
2100 with no facts, or research. This is a funky organization owned by
a foreigner who hates the US except for the money, and a Saudi Prince
for whom a strong US would not be a good thing. Enjoy fox mush heads. The fact only about a dozen or so cable channels that are rated by most organizations is in itself revealing as fox propaganda machine tops a few, but combined even without the other 120 or so ( after all, to be fair, there are half a dozen chanels on my cable that just try to sell stuff 24/7 ), it shows how small the fox viewership actually is on regular days, 2 or 3 million out of 340million is nothing to brag about. So good for maddow, but very small persentage of the viewership
Great. For once quality and popularity are intertwined.
I agree with Scott. MSNBC’s ratings will probably never reach the level of Fox’s ratings.
You have two different mediums vying for viewers.
MSNBC is an actual News organization and it’s hard to make actual factual News exciting. They are bound by journalistic standards and practices, even for the opinion shows.
Fox News is entertainment, fiction, and propaganda designed to cater to a specific group. They are exempt from actual journalistic standards and practices because of the business model they are running. Just like the “Onion News” is more entertaining since they aren’t bound by those standards.
Two wholly different things.
MSNBC does not follow journalistic standards of any kind. They have been caught with a long list of dishonest editing episodes. Chris Matthews slanders conservatives by continually screaming that they are all racists. Al Sharpton has been pulling his race-hustling tactics for the past two decades. And the few reporters that show up on MSNBC are simply on loan from the NBC mothership.
Fox News has a stellar team of journalists. Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, James Rosen, Carl Cameron – that list is impressive.
LOL
Sounds like Scott is indeed auditioning for The Onion. He gets my vote. Congratulations. ????
One wonders what universe you live in, Scott. Faux Noise has admitted in court that it lies and that lying is one of the things it has the right to do. I can’t think of any other News organization that made that claim. But I can see an Entertainment organization making that claim. I never watch Faux Noise but I do read studies – especially the ones that have found that Faux Noise viewers are the most misinformed entertainment watchers. Even more misinformed than those who watch no television news at all.
Those studies are bogus.
About as “impressive” as a dirty toilet after somebody’s bout of diarrhea. These people aren’t “journalists” … they are opinionists and they spread lies and propaganda. Look up the meaning of “news” or “truth.”
They tell the truth. People like Matthews and Sharpton speak lies.
Saying that without any actual facts to back it up doesn’t make it so Scott. I continually see republicans caught on video denying what is clearly captured on tape. Got anything like that?
how much is fox paying you to counter these kinds of stories?
Oh for heavens sake Scott. You must exist in the bizarro world where everything is opposite.
TMRS is the best thing on news going, with Chris Hayes right behind. They will never get the long term titillation crowd, but you do get actual facts and information.
Stellar team…THAT’S a lauugh!
Poor Scott seems to have od’d on the Faux News Kool-Aid!
CNN needs to take a lesson from this and quit trying to be Fox-lite!
FOX(FAUX) NEWS: the go to “news” programs for rednecks, bigots, homophobes, racists, misogynists and all other general haters who live in constant fear of the changing landscape, political and otherwise, of their formally white dominated America. Sad lot of an increasingly irrelevant demographic!
Thanks Paul, for telling it like it is. Every time I see or here someone supporing Fox News I know that person is very misinformed. It is a waste of time trying to convince those people that they are misinformed because it’s too hard for them to admit that they have been made a fool.
Paul C. is lying. And all of you know it.
Perhaps Jon Stewart can help put Scott needs to hear.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/jun/22/jon-stewarts-politifact-segment-annotated-edition/
Who cares what Jon Stewart says? He’s not a real news anchor. Yes, he thrashed Fox news daily and they still beat everyone so he is not that influential.
Faux News gets a larger share of a smaller and smaller audience. The generational divide says that the newer generations just don’t watch fox. But they do watch the Daily show, and many do watch TRMS. Faux news is over. Way over. And Ailes knows it. He’s looking to get out while he gets the big bucks.